Phenom II X3 720 BE + Gigabyte MA790FXT UD5P

[keenan]

Setup used...

* AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE (1.3V VID)
* Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
* 2 x 1GB 1333Mhz DDR3 @ 9-9-9-24

Bit more stable with the F4D bios, but still playing...

3.7Ghz on 1.45V



Everest Memory and Cache Bench

[zithe]

That's awesome! These chips sound really nice. You having any issues with 1333mhz?

[keenan]

None at all, keeping the "bus" at 200mhz so 1333Mhz memory is fine

Upped the Dimm voltage from 1.6V to 1.8V and managed to tighten the timings to 8-8-8-18

[zithe]

Awesome. Have you tried any higher clocks on the RAM?

[ShadowFold]

Where's your errata now AMD?! Nice OC man!! Keep posting progress!

[keenan]

Added some Everest results to the first post

[keenan]

Originally Posted by zithe

Have you tried any higher clocks on the RAM?

Best I can get is 1600Mhz @ 10-8-8-22-33 @ 1.8V

I've got some heat spreaders on the modules, what would be max voltage for DDR3, taking in account these are rated at 1.5V

[3dsage]

Nice dude, do a quick Wprime run .
I got my eye on that board, it looks so sweet.

[Xazax]

Whats with those speeds man? that write is terrible, i have a 5000+ BE ATM and when i clock 250HT (1000mhz memory) 4-4-4-12 i get about 9.5mb/s write/copy/read

[keenan]

Originally Posted by 3dsage

do a quick Wprime run

Which version and do I just run it or do I need to do a spesific test..?

[3dsage]

Prob cause he's clocking with the Multi, I bet if he turned up his HT/NB to around 250, the Write speed will shoot up.


@Keenan
Use Version 2, http://www.wprime.net/

[keenan]

Originally Posted by Xazax

Whats with those speeds man? that write is terrible, i have a 5000+ BE ATM and when i clock 250HT (1000mhz memory) 4-4-4-12 i get about 9.5mb/s write/copy/read

1000Mhz @ 4-4-4-12 is much better then 1600Mhz @ 10-8-8-22

[keenan]

Wprime 32M Run

12.884 sec

[Xazax]

Dont suppose you can lower the DDR3 ram speed at all and see if that gives you better memory performance

[Odin Eidolon]

what's limiting the oc to 3.7GHz there? do you think that with better cooling it can reach 4GHz? i was thinking of going AMD this time

[HolyCow02]

sweet results... I know these would be good overclockers... and for such a good price!

[Kei]

Sweet overclock, but for the ram situation you should not worry so much about your final overclock but FAR more importantly on how high you can get the Northbridge speed stable.

Once you do that you will see your numbers shoot through the roof with those clocks. Try something simple even like raising the northbridge multiplier to 12x instead of the default 10x and you should get 2.4Ghz without any effort at all. That will dramatically enhance your performance especially in memory intensive programs/bench's.

Very nice combe so far either way.

Kei

[keenan]

Thank for the info kei

BTW.. How can I get this CPU to go higher the 260mhz, nothing helps in this matter

After long testing and frustrating cmos reset after cmos reset I got this....



Configuration used....

* Phenom II 720 BE
* Multiplier = 19.5
* Bus Speed = 200
* Motherboard = Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
* Memory Speed and Timings = 2 x 1GB 1333Mhz DDR3 @ 8-8-8-18
* NB Frequency = 2.8Ghz
* HT Frequency = 2.6Ghz

Voltages

* NB voltage control = +0.1V
* SB/HT volatge control = +0.1V
* NB/PCIe/PLL voltage control = +0.1V
* DDR VTT voltage control = Normal
* CPU NB VID control = +0.250V
* CPU VID control = +0.250V

[ShadowFold]

Hey turn Advanced Clock Calibration on AUTO for a nice surprise

[keenan]

Originally Posted by ShadowFold

Hey turn Advanced Clock Calibration on AUTO for a nice surprise

Already tried it mate, no surprise for me..

[ShadowFold]

Ah that sucks! I wonder why it worked for that Taiwan dude..

[keenan]

It is not exactly a secret that Phenom Triple core processors in fact are a quad-core processor with in core disabled. Now before we begin out little tail and you storm off to the stores, realize this .. one core being disabled is always for a reason. It might be a problematic core, slightly instable or just downright damaged. But if you are in luck, the 4th core works properly. And now let me continue my little tail ..

A Korean user has discovered that it is rather easy to unlock the disabled core on Phenom II X3 processors, provided the motherboard supports the Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC) feature (790GX motherboards) and this trick seems to work with Triple core Phenom II X3 720 and Phenom II X3 710, codename Heka.

Only with the 904xxxx-stepping; this tweak seems to work, not with 0849xxxx. On an ASUS motherboard this little trick did not work, but it's confirmed to work on 790 motherboards from Biostar and Asrock.

In this example a Phenom II X3 710 was paired with a Biostar TA790GX 128M motherboard. The CPU was overclocked to 3.12 GHz, with a vCore setting of 1.37 V.

Here's what you could try out:

Set the appropriate BIOS setting for the Advanced Clock Calibration feature to "Auto", save settings and restart. The system will be able to deal with the disabled core, and off load some work to it.

Taken from an article on guru3d....

[devguy]

Originally Posted by ShadowFold

Hey turn Advanced Clock Calibration on AUTO for a nice surprise

I just got my Phenom 720 in today. I'll be doing what most reviewers and other users haven't done; using it on an SB600/790FX combo board. Unfortunately, I left my MX-2 grease out of town, so I'm not going to be overclocking this beast until next week, as I'll be using stock heatsink/grease instead of my Zalman 9700/mx2.

[chaotic_uk]

what heatsink does it use ?, is it the one with the copper heat pipes ?

[devguy]

Originally Posted by chaotic_uk

what heatsink does it use ?, is it the one with the copper heat pipes ?

No, I am ashamed to say it is an even crappier heatsink than the one that came with my A64 Venice. It is nothing like the Phenom II x4 one, which is the same as the one that came with my Denmark Opteron 170.

Also, I'm appalled at Gigabyte for their compatibility list for the Phenom II am2+/am3 here. It says that my mobo is good to go on bios revision F6. F7 is the latest bios, but it was somewhat unstable for me with the same overclock on my Phenom I, so I kept it at F6. So, I put in the new 720 and it doesn't boot AT ALL! I then try resetting the CMOS and retrying. Still no good. So, then I put in the old Phenom, update the BIOS with @BIOS, then reboot, plug in the 720 and it finally works.

With the Phenom II on the stock cooler, I bumped up the multiplier to get it to 3Ghz from 2.8Ghz without changing voltage, so I could do some speed comparisons with my old Phenom I at 3Ghz, both have the ram set to 1066mhz. Well, it didn't even make it through a 3dmark Vantage run without crashing. It's too early to tell if it is the chip, if it needs more voltage, or what (temperatures seemed in check even at 3Ghz load). I'll retry at stock speed and see if there are any issues. I'll report back when I get my Zalman reinstalled.